


From Pining to Puns

by wRaZ



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: But aren't we all, F/F, Wraith is kind of useless, puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:55:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25679230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wRaZ/pseuds/wRaZ
Summary: Finding herself constantly unable to ask her fellow legend Natalie out, Wraith tries the easiest thing she can think of; puns.Unfortunately things still aren't that easy and they're given a little push from a friend.
Relationships: Wattson | Natalie Paquette/Wraith | Renee Blasey
Comments: 4
Kudos: 73





	From Pining to Puns

It may have taken a few weeks, but Wraith finally understood what Elliot meant when he said love does strange things to people. She wasn't sure if even her all knowing alternate selves would have been able to guess that she would be trying to use _puns_ of all things to try and talk to someone she liked.

Wraith didn't think a verbal prodding on the subject at the Paradise Lounge would send her down the slippery slope from useless pining to puns, but she guessed almost losing her head from near miss sentinel shots after spending too long making ‘googly eyes’ -as Elliot put it- at Natalie would eventually get frustrating for her squad mates. 

While she could’ve left at any time, at the very least Elliot was offering a few drinks on the house. She wasn't stupid enough to refuse free appletinis. Though thinking back on it she wondered if the drinks were to make her hang around or loosen her tongue on the subject. 

He’d patiently sat listening to her spill her guts while drying glasses, with Che sitting nearby drumming her fingers off the bar after closing time late one night, offering pieces of encouragement and advice. The combat medic added little bits to the conversation here and there, but mostly spoke up when some horrible idea about pumpkins came up. Even with several appletinis in her she wasn't sure about the vegetable thing, but ate the rest up and slammed an empty glass down so hard Elliot flinched and strode out, asking no one in particular the deceptively easy question of _how hard can it be_ ? 

Very, apparently. 

Her mind was set on getting the simple words out, an easy _'would you like to go to dinner with me sometime?'_ or _‘do you want to get a coffee?’_ as she had been advised to try _._ It was simple, basic, but near impossible. Whenever the moment came -one that presented itself several times already-, her body betrayed her. Words would catch in her throat leaving Wraith a mumbling mess while her face would turn scarlet and feel near molten. The most embarrassing part was the instinct to just hide from it all and bury herself in her scarf, which never helped unsurprisingly. 

If asking her out to dinner was too hard, then Wraith decided she could settle for starting smaller. Finding something that could lead into conversation easier. Although the idea of starting smaller could just be fuelling her addiction to the feeling of warmth and fullness that made her heart feel like it was going to burst free from her chest when she saw Natalie's megawatt smile. 

It hadn't taken her too long to figure puns might work. Nat seemed to try and sneak as many puns as possible in at every possible moment, but Wraith wasn't the type of person for jokes. So she tried Elliot again, for validation if nothing else, who claimed the only thing about electricity was that light switches turn on light bulbs. At least they both had the same number of ideas.

She didn’t think she could be original with puns, as she was sure that Natalie must’ve made one for every possible word, and Wraith didn’t want to find herself down virtual rabbit holes in the early hours of the morning trying to find an obscure physics word, smitten or not. Hopefully rehashed puns didn't make them much worse than they already were. It was just, once again, finding the right moment. 

Their current match which placed her on a team with Natalie and Che gave her ample opportunities to try her new idea, but none of her awkward puns seemed to work, only getting the attention of Che who seemed close to snapping with each awkward and terrible pun that came out of her mouth. Wraith was definitely not the jokey sort of person. 

They had spent some of the later rings in Skyhook, with the ring thankfully not pulling away from their chosen over the past few rounds. Che had almost shooed her out to go look around for bits and pieces that had been left by squads that had landed here off of drop, and Wraith couldn’t blame her. If she had to listen to herself make puns for the past hour she was sure she would be fed up with herself too. 

Natalie and Lifeline mainly stayed in the building, the two of them going between watching from the roof with snipers or taking peeks outside through the various windows. After a while they had a good little stockpile going, and they currently had their eyes on a neutral care package set to drop near the jagged mountains. Wraith would be the one going to check it, as they decided it would be safest for her to do so alone and hopefully she wouldn’t run into anyone else in the process.

She paced back and forth at the foot of the stairs in front of a set of double doors, her fastest way out, as she waited for it to drop. Natalie stood close nearby, swaying gently. Wraith tried her best not to pay attention to her teammate; the loot from the package could help them with a win, and she’d already had a disaster in a similar situation already, where she couldn't take her eyes off her as their care package that game received a hail of gunfire. 

Natalie pushed the doors open for her, wishing her good luck as the package landed, kicking up dust. Wraith nodded in response, ignoring the heat that rushed to her face and started moving. She had managed to arrive first and took a glance around, thankfully not seeing anyone else moving her way, though that was never an excuse to take her time. She promptly tugged down a handle on the side of the package to open the compartments and quickly made her way around, checking if it had anything they could use. 

There were a few sniper attachments, but she was sure they had all the optics they could ever need currently on their weapons or sitting in the deathbox graveyards nearby. A shield battery was always useful so she quickly tucked that away in her backpack before setting her eyes on the main prize. A shiny devotion. 

Wraith was quick to sling the havoc off her shoulder, eager to get rid of it, letting it to the ground as she grabbed the devotion from its compartment, pulling the bolt back so it would be ready to go if she needed it. 

" _You've been spotted,_ " one of the voices said, clear above the usual constant mumbles. 

Wraith lifted the devotion and pressed the stock against her shoulder, scanning windows, rooftops and street corners with the barrel following her eyes. 

There were no shots. 

A quick glance straight up and no siren blare told her there was no immediate artillery. 

No shadowed fighters dashing towards her, and the air was still completely breathable. 

It was almost too good to be true, but she wasn't about to wait around to see if anyone changed their minds. Throwing the devotion over her shoulder where the havoc used to sit against her backpack and moved to slide down the gentle slope back to safety. 

The doors were still open waiting for her, the fence circuit disconnecting and reconnecting with a crack as she stepped through where she was greeted by her teammates. Wraith passed the shield battery over to Lifeline and pulled the devotion over her shoulders and weighed it in her hands, getting an idea. Maybe a horrible idea, but an idea nonetheless.   
  
“ _What are you waiting for,_ ” The voices spoke up once more, “ _say it already,_ ”

Wraith cleared her throat, glancing down at the gun in her hands, almost as if that would give her the little extra push she needed. Taking a deep breath, she looked up to Natalie offering a small smile as she raised the devotion slightly.   
  
“I was quite ec _static_ to see this,” she said in a voice so quiet it felt more like a whisper.

Lifeline rolled her eyes and was quick to grab the battery and offer to take it upstairs to where they had been stashing the rest of their loot, not even bothering to wait for a reply before she shot off up the zipline, leaving Wraith alone with a beaming Natalie. It had managed to work this time. 

“I didn’t know you could be funny, Wraith,” Nat giggled. 

Wraith felt heat rush to her face and she tugged her scarf over her nose, trying to hide the fact she’d turned bright red. 

“It’s something I’m trying,” she stuttered out, trying to look at anything but Natalie. 

Natalie moved to the stairs, pushing the doors closed as she passed, the smile staying on her face.

“I could teach you more jokes if you’d like,” 

Wraith managed to get out a nod, and Natalie grabbed her by the wrist, leading her up the stairs. When they reached the roof Wraith made herself comfy on one of the roof's raised areas above the zipline, where Natalie was quick to join her, talking about her favourite puns all the while. Eventually Wraith decided to do something better than sitting around idly listening and pulled the wingman off her hip placing it beside her, before reaching to take her backpack off as well. She rummaged around inside of it for a moment before pulling a few boxes of ammunition and extra mags for a quick and easy swap. Some of the mags were still empty, and filling them up while she kept watch seemed like a better time consumer than anything else. 

Another short while passed, the only interesting things other than Natalie’s chatter being a few shots ringing out on the other side of Skyhook, which they thought was nothing worth investigating. 

Natalie eventually ran out of puns to talk about, leaving them in a comfortable silence, spent most of her time scanning the streets for any movements through the scope of her longbow while Wraith filled spare magazines for her wingman with ammo she had dug out of her backpack to keep herself busy. Neither were entirely sure what their squadmate was up to at this point, but Natalie assured her Lifeline was fine.

A short time after the last of her spare mags had been filled up Wraith started taking a few potshots at the faint shadows of people moving past windows. Many of her bullets ended up digging into walls and spraying dirt across the ground, but at least it was entertainment. 

Natalie had set her longbow to the side of her somewhere in between the fourth or fifth round of shots and had started swinging her legs over the edge of the roof. Wraith watched out of the corner of her eye while while shooting, as Natalie picked at some loose threads on her jacket, fixed her gloves and redid the velcro on her shoes, not missing how quick she was to look away whenever their eyes met for the briefest of moments when she had been caught stealing glances. 

"You know, Wraith," Natalie started, making Wraith cease her shooting and turn her head to look at the other legend who was in the middle of tugging at a particularly long loose thread for a moment before she turned her attention to her squadmate "the muzzle flash really brings out your eyes,"

Wraith swore the wingman came very close to falling out of her hands and plummeting to the pavement below in that moment. Heat shot straight to her face and was only made worse with Natalie's ensuing giggle. She struggled to find any words to come back with, and was sure she could hear the voices in the back of her head pushing for her to say _something_. "I didn't expect you to be flustered so easily. Maybe I should have been paying more attention," Natalie continued after a moment when she received no reply. 

Pulling herself together for more than a second, Wraith tightened her grip on the wingman, still scared it could yet fall, and brought herself to speak. 

"There's still a lot of things you don't know about me," 

Natalie smirked and ran a hand through her fringe which always managed to escape her hood before shuffling around to face Wraith. 

"Maybe you could tell me those things over dinner sometime,"

She thought her heart almost stopped. Or maybe it was going so fast she couldn't feel it anymore. Should she check? Her attempts at replying came out as a jumble, as her mind couldn’t seem to decide whether she should just say ‘yes’ or something more. Natalie just watched her intently during her mini meltdown, a slight smile on her face. 

Wraith swallowed thickly and gave in to the silly grin tugging at her cheeks, settling on what possibly could be the stupidest thing she could say, almost laughing herself. 

“I’d be honoured to,” 

The reaction was instantaneous, and Natalie cheered and threw her arms around her for a hug. Wraith lent into it, putting an arm around Natalie’s waist and using her free hand to put the wingman back on her hip.

“Maybe you can try food from somewhere that isn't the Paradise Lounge for once,” Natalie said, pulling away a little. 

“Elliot is a decent cook though,” 

“Maybe, but if it’s going to be a date we should go somewhere a bit nicer than a bar, non?”

A _date_? 

Natalie released a slightly stunned Wraith from the hug and slipped down onto the larger area of roof below, pulling the longbow down with her. She dusted herself off and gave Wraith another smile before moving closer to the stairwell with the rifle over her shoulder. “I think I’ll go check on Lifeline. We still have a game to win after all. I can pick you up at eight?”   
  


“Sure,” Wraith replied softly. 

“I’ll see you then, chérie!” 

With that she skipped off down the stairs, leaving Wraith alone. Her heart pounded in her ears as she wiped the grin off her face. Oh god it was a date. Had she ever been on one before? Did she have anything to wear? Should she bring anything? Flowers? Wine? No, the restaurant would have wine. She could offer to pay. Sometimes she wished that the voices would offer advice on things like this other than just danger. Her thoughts stayed whirring round in that wild frenzy of clothes, gifts and other date things. 

Her communicator crackling in her ear snapped her out of it, and she was greeted with Lifeline’s voice on the other side.   
  
“You’d be honoured, eh Wraith?” Wraith could almost hear Che’s bright laughter from floors below. At times Wraith was almost hesitant to enter the void, but currently she wanted nothing more than to be swallowed whole by it. Almost as if sensing her embarrassment, Che continued to speak. “I hope ya don’t mind me giving Wattson a little nudge while you were at the care package. At least I can tell Mirage he's free to start shootin' at you again. Now hurry up and get down here, rings closin’ soon and we gotta go. If you’re lucky I might give you advice when we’re movin’.” 

Wraith lifted her hand to the communicator and tapped it, opening the line. 

“Copy that,” 

Another quick tap closed the line, and Wraith hopped down off the roof and made her way over to the zipline, looking over her shoulder quickly to make sure she hadn’t left anything behind. 

Maybe she should take Lifeline up on her offer.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Respawn for making me write again after 3 years thanks to apex lesbians. :]
> 
> But even 3 years later titles are still hard. :/


End file.
